Hidetsugu Aneha

Who is Hidetsugu Aneha?

Hidetsugu Aneha is a former Japanese architect and builder accused of falsifying structural data regarding the earthquake resistance of various condominiums and hotels.

Aneha was born in Osato, Miyagi Prefecture in 1957 and graduated from the construction program at Furukawa Technical High School in 1976. Instead of attending university, he joined an Osaka-based general contractor firm. In 1984, Aneha established an architect's office in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture. He was licensed as a first-class architect in 1990.

On December 7, 2005, his first-class architect license was revoked by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. Witnesses were summoned by the Diet on December 14, and police inspected Aneha's home on December 20. On April 26, 2006, he and seven people, including Moriyoshi Kimura, Akira Shinozuka and Togo Fujita were arrested for violations of the Architect Act and other laws. Aneha's wife reportedly died after she jumped out of a condominium in Chiba in 2006.

On December 26, 2006 the Tokyo District Court sentenced the architect to five years in prison plus a fine of 1.8 million yen. On February 19, 2008, the top court upheld his original sentence. In the end, he had been subject to so much ridicule in the public eye that it became common to refer to shoddy work as, doing aneha.